Focus on strategic priorities that have significant social impact.

CAT 2013-51

Integrating quality of life assessments into acute care for older adults with chronic life-limiting illness

This Quality of Life Assessment and Practice Support System (QPSS) will consist of carefully selected questions that nurses can use to obtain patients' and family caregivers' perspectives about their quality of life (QOL) concerns and care needs. It will also inform the practice of health care professionals by providing appropriate suggestions about how to manage the QOL concerns identified during the assessment.

Older adults who have advancing chronic and life-limiting illnesses present significant challenges for health care delivery in hospital-based settings. They often have complex problems that affect their ability to function and their overall QOL. Routine assessment of their perceived health care needs and their QOL make patients' and family caregivers' concerns more visible to health care professionals, so that they can be effectively monitored and addressed. These types of assessments involve asking people about their symptoms, their physical, psychological, social and existential/spiritual wellbeing and their experiences with health care.

This project involves the design and implementation of an electronic (tablet-based) practice support tool for clinicians in hospital-based care settings to assess health-related concerns relevant to the QOL of older people with chronic life-limiting illnesses, and that of their family caregivers. The QPSS will be developed and tested in collaboration with health care professionals, patients and family caregivers.